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HONG KONG (AP) — To his supporters, former Hong Kong media mogulJimmy Laiis a fighter for democracy. To the government, he is a traitor to his motherland.

The 78-year-old outspoken critic of China's ruling Communist Party awaits sentencing Monday after being convicted in December of conspiring to commit sedition and collude with foreign forces.

Observers say hislandmark trialcame to symbolize a crackdown that began in 2020 on press and other freedoms that has changed Hong Kong, the former British colony that returned to China's control in 1997.

The Hong Kong government insists Lai's case has nothing to do with press freedom, but instead is an example of righteousness upheld by the law.

A migrant from mainland China, he made a fortune in the garment industry in Hong Kong and later founded theApple Daily newspaper, where he wrote articles criticizing the Chinese and Hong Kong governments for limiting freedoms. The publication eventually was shuttered and his words became trial evidence.

Here is what to know about his unusual journey to political activism that has ended, at least for the moment, in prison.

A stowaway founds a clothing giant

Lai was born in 1947 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, once known as Canton, two years before the communists came to power.

He was just 12 when he stowed away on a fishing boat to Hong Kong, about 135 kilometers (84 miles) from Guangzhou. Like many other Chinese of that era, Lai hoped for a better life in the British colony. Working as a child laborer in a glove factory served as his introduction to the garment industry.

In 1981, he founded Giordano, an affordable casual clothing chain that has grown into an international brand with 1,600 retail outlets in 30 countries, according to its website.

Shift to publishing gives Lai a voice

Lai sold his interest in Giordano in the mid-1990s when the company came under pressure from Beijing. That came after he called hard-line Premier Li Peng "the son of a turtle egg," a slur in Chinese, after the communist leader justified the government's deadly 1989 crackdown on protests in Beijing'sTiananmen Square.

The violent suppression was a pivotal moment for Lai, he later said. Giordano printed T-shirts in support of the pro-democracy protests and he made his first foray into publishing in 1990, founding Next Magazine.

Five years later, he started the Apple Daily, a tabloid-style publication that drew readership with sometimes sensational reports and investigative scoops. The publication openly criticized the government, which some observers now say landed Lai in trouble about 25 years down the road.

Joining activists in Hong Kong's streets

Lai took to the streets in 2014, taking part in the pro-democracy protests known as theUmbrella Movementthat for months filled parts of Hong Kong. Demonstrators used umbrellas to shield themselves from police pepper spray. TheAppleDaily ran articles sympathetic to the movement.

Lai came out again in 2019 for a new wave of protests that shook the government and led to the crackdown on the city's freedoms. He alsourged U.S. Vice President Mike Penceand Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to speak out on Hong Kong's situation in meetings that became an issue during his trial.

The following year, China's central government in Beijing imposed anational security lawon Hong Kong. Lai was arrested more than a month later.

Drawing the crucifixion

Lai has been in custody since December 2020. The food lover who was called "Fatty Lai" by some friends and even a rival newspaper appears to have become thinner behind bars.

A Roman Catholic, Lai made drawings in prison of the crucifixion of Jesus, according to his friend Robert Sirico, a priest who received one of the pictures.

"For truth prevails in God's kingdom, and that's good enough for me," Lai testified in November 2024 during his trial, arguing that his Apple Daily writings were done without hostility or seditious intent.

In July 2020, shortly after the commencement of the national security law under which he was eventually convicted,Lai told The Associated Pressthat "Hong Kong is dead."

"If I have to go to prison, I don't mind. I don't care," he said. "It won't be something I can worry about, I'll just relax and do what I have to do."

Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI collected ample proof thatJeffrey Epsteinsexually abused underage girls but found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.

Videos and photos seized from Epstein's homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn't depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.

An examination of Epstein's financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.

Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said "four or five" Epstein accusers claimed other men or women had sexually abused them. But, the agents said, there "was not enough evidence to federally charge these individuals."

The AP and other media organizations are still reviewingmillions of pages of documents, many of them previously confidential, that the Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and it is possible those records contain evidence overlooked by investigators.

Here are takeaways from what the documents show about the FBI investigation and why U.S. authorities ultimately decided to close it without additional charges.

Origins of the investigation

The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported that she had been molested at the millionaire's home in Palm Beach, Florida. Then-Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acostastruck a dealletting Epstein plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.

In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations.

Epstein wasarrested in July of 2019. One month later, hekilled himselfin his jail cell.

A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein's longtime confidant,Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she'd recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.

Lack of evidence for coconspirators

Prosecution memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the department's latest release of Epstein-related records show that FBI agents and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims, called in to tip lines, were examined.

Some allegations couldn't be verified, investigators wrote.

In 2011 and again in 2019, investigators interviewedVirginia Roberts Giuffre, who in lawsuits and news interviews had accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including Britain's formerPrince Andrew.

Investigators said they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused by Epstein. But other parts of her story were problematic.

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Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time with Epstein containing descriptions of things that didn't take place. She had also offered shifting accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote.

Two other Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed were also "lent out" to powerful men told investigators they had no such experience, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo.

Photos and video don't implicate others

Investigators seized a multitude of videos and photos from Epstein's electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They found CDs, hard copy photographs and at least one videotape containing nude images of females.

No videos or photos showed Epstein victims being sexually abused, none showed any males with any of the nude females, and none contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an email for FBI officials last year.

Had they existed, the government "would have pursued any leads they generated," Comey wrote. "We did not, however, locate any such videos."

Investigators who scoured Epstein's bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that he was engaged in prostituting women to other men, prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors weighed the possibility of charging some of Epstein's close associates, including an assistant and business clients, but ultimately decided against it because of lack of evidence.

No client list found

Attorney General Pam Bondi toldFox News in February 2025that Epstein's never-before-seen "client list" was "sitting on my desk right now." But FBI agents wrote superiors saying the client list didn't exist.

On Dec. 30, 2024, about three weeks before President Joe Biden left office, then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate reached out through subordinates to ask "whether our investigation to date indicates the 'client list,' often referred to in the media, does or does not exist," according to an email summarizing his query.

A day later, an FBI official replied that the case agent had confirmed no client list existed.

On Feb. 19, 2025, two days before Bondi's Fox News appearance, an FBI supervisory special agent wrote: "While media coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case references a 'client list,' investigators did not locate such a list during the course of the investigation."

Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

___ The AP is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with journalists from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from each newsroom are working together to examine the files and share information about what is in them. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's government on Sunday released from prison several prominent opposition members, including one of the closest allies of Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, after lengthy politically motivated detentions.

Their releases come as the government ofacting President Delcy Rodríguezfaces mounting pressure to free hundreds of people whose detentions months or years ago have been linked to their political beliefs. They also follow a visit to Venezuela of representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela's acting president after the Jan. 3 capture in Caracas of then-PresidentNicolás Maduroby the U.S. military. Her government began releasing prisoners days later.

"I am convinced that our country has completely changed," Juan Pablo Guanipa, a Machado ally and former governor, told reporters hours after his release. "I am convinced that it is now up to all of us to focus on building a free and democratic country."

Guanipa, who spent more than eight months in custody, was released from a detention facility in the capital, Caracas. An armored vehicle and officers appeared behind him in the video he released.

Venezuelan-based prisoners' rights group Foro Penal confirmed the release of at least 30 people on Sunday.

In addition to Guanipa, Machado's political organization said several of its members were among the released, including María Oropeza,who livestreamed her arrest by military intelligence officersas they broke into her home with a crowbar. Machado's attorney, Perkins Rocha, was also freed.

"Let's go for the freedom of Venezuela!" Machado posted on X.

Guanipa was detained in late May and accused byInterior Minister Diosdado Cabelloof participating in an alleged "terrorist group" plotting to boycott that month's legislative election. Guanipa's brother Tomás rejected the accusation, and said that the arrest was meant to crack down on dissent.

"Thinking differently cannot be criminalized in Venezuela, and today, Juan Pablo Guanipa is a prisoner of conscience of this regime," Tomás Guanipa said after the arrest. "He has the right to think as he thinks, the right to defend his ideas, and the right to be treated under a constitution that is not being enforced today."

Her government announced on Jan. 8 it would free asignificant number of prisoners— a central demand of the country's opposition and human rights organizations with backing from the United States — but families and rights watchdogs have criticized authorities for the slow pace of the releases.

The ruling party-controlled National Assembly this week began debating an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners. The opposition and nongovernmental organizations have reacted with cautious optimism as well as with suggestions and demands for more information on the contents of the proposal.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez on Friday posted a video on Instagram showing him outside a detention center in Caracas and saying that "everyone" would be released no later than next week, once the amnesty bill is approved.

Delcy Rodríguez and Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke by phone in late January. His spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, in a statement said he "offered our support to help Venezuela work on a roadmap for dialogue and reconciliation in which human rights should be at the centre" and then "deployed a team" to the South American country.

Machado remains in exile after leaving Venezuela in December. After she was briefly detained in January 2025, she had not been seen in public for 11 months when she appeared in Norway after the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.

Guanipa on Sunday said Machado "exercises undeniable leadership" and is needed in Venezuela along with other exiled political leaders to move the country forward.

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

An 18-month-old baby held with her parents ata South Texas immigration detention centerbecame so ill last month that she was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening respiratory failure — then sent back to detention days later, where she was denied daily medication doctors prescribed, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday.

The toddler, Amalia, remained in detention for another nine days and was released only after lawyers filed an emergency habeas corpus petition in federal court challenging her continued confinement. She was freed Friday after the filing.

Amalia had been healthy before immigration officers arrested her family in El Paso in December and transferred them to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, a remote, prisonlike facility where hundreds of immigrant children are held with their parents. Advocates and pediatric experts have warned that conditions at the center are unsafe for young children.

Amalia's health quickly deteriorated, the lawsuit says. On Jan. 18, she was rushed to a children's hospital in San Antonio, where doctors treated her for pneumonia, Covid-19, RSV and severe respiratory distress.

"She was at the brink of dying," said Elora Mukherjee, a Columbia Law School professor and the director of the school's Immigrants' Rights Clinic, who filed the petition seeking the family's release.

Yet after Amalia's return to Dilley on Jan. 28, federal officials "denied her access to the medication that doctors prescribed for her at the hospital" the lawsuit says, forcing her parents to "wait in long lines for hours outside daily" to request the medicine, only to be turned away.

After days of intensive treatment on oxygen, Amalia began to recover. But her discharge from the hospital was not the end of her ordeal.

Despite warnings from medical experts that the toddler remained medically vulnerable and at high risk of reinfection, immigration officers returned Amalia and her mother to the detention center, the lawsuit says.

"After baby Amalia had been hospitalized for 10 days, ICE thought this baby should be returned to Dilley, where she was denied access to the medicines that the hospital doctors told her she needed," Mukherjee said. "It is so outrageous."

The Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. It has defended its use of family detention, saying in statements and legal filings that detainees are provided basic necessities and that officials work to ensure children and adults are safe.

CoreCivic, the company that runs Dilley under a federal contract, deferred questions about the facility to DHS and said in a statement that "the health and safety of those entrusted to our care" is the company's top priority.

Amalia's case comes amid heightened scrutiny of conditions at Dilley, which was thrust into the national spotlight last month after immigration authoritiesdetained Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy taken into custody with his father — an episode that drew widespread outrage after a photograph showed the child in a blue bunny hat as he was led away by officers.

Accounts fromdetained families, their lawyers and court filingsportray Dilley as a place where hundreds of children languish while being served contaminated food, receiving little education and struggling to obtain basic medical care. Sworn declarationsfrom dozens of parentssay prolonged confinement takes a heavy physical and psychological toll on children — including regression, weight loss, recurring illness and nightmares — as the federal government expands the use of family detention.

Like many other families held at Dilley, lawyers for Amalia's parents say the family should never have been detained.

Kheilin Valero Marcano and Stiven Arrieta Prieto entered the United States in 2024 after fleeing Venezuela, where they say they faced persecution for their political opposition to President Nicolás Maduro, according to the lawsuit. During their journey north, Valero Marcano gave birth to Amalia in Mexico.

They applied for asylum through the government-run appointment system CBP One, and immigration authorities allowed the family to live in El Paso while their case moved forward. According to the lawsuit, they checked in regularly with immigration officials and complied with all requirements, including participation in an alternative-to-detention monitoring program.

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That changed on Dec. 11, when the family reported together for a check-in and was taken into custody, according to the lawsuit. Two days later, they were transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, a sprawling complex an hour south of San Antonio, more than 500 miles from the community where they had been living.

Once inside Dilley, the parents say their daughter's health deteriorated quickly. In early January, Amalia developed a high fever that would not break. She began vomiting, had diarrhea and struggled to breathe.

As she grew weaker, her parents said they repeatedly took her to the facility's medical clinic — eight or nine times, according to the lawsuit — seeking help. Each visit ended the same way, according to the lawsuit: basic fever medication.

By mid-January, Amalia was barely getting enough oxygen. On Jan. 18, the lawsuit said, her blood oxygen levels plunged into the 50s — ​a life-threatening emergency — and she was taken out of the facility with her mother to a hospital. Her father remained behind at Dilley, unable to communicate with his wife or see his daughter as doctors worked to save her.

She spent 10 days at Methodist Children's Hospital in San Antonio, much of that time on oxygen, as her lungs struggled to recover. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers maintained constant supervision over Amalia and her mother throughout the hospitalization, according to the lawsuit.

Mukherjee said the girl's mother spent the days praying at her daughter's bedside, terrified she would die — and was later devastated to learn that, once discharged, they would be sent back to detention.

When Amalia was released from the hospital on Jan. 28, doctors gave clear instructions, medical records cited in the lawsuit show: She needed breathing treatments delivered by nebulizer and nutritional supplements to help her regain strength and weight.

Instead of allowing them to return to El Paso, immigration officers drove Amalia and her mother back to Dilley, the lawsuit says.

Once there, detention medical staff confiscated Amalia's nebulizer, albuterol and nutritional supplements. The parents were required to wait daily for hours in what detainees have described in interviews and sworn declarations as the "pill line" — an outdoor queue families must stand in to obtain medicine and other necessities.

Amalia shivered in her mother's arms as they waited in the cold, Mukherjee said, only to be given PediaSure and denied the breathing medication doctors had prescribed.

As Amalia remained in detention, Mukherjee and other immigration lawyers repeatedly urged federal officials to release the family, warning that the child's condition could rapidly worsen.

Medical experts who reviewed Amalia's records submitted affidavits cautioning that returning a medically fragile toddler to detention — particularly without reliable access to prescribed medication — put her at extreme danger. One physician warned that the child faced a "high risk for medical decompensation and death."

Mukherjee's efforts intensified after health officialsconfirmed two measles casesamong people held at Dilley.

When those appeals failed, Mukherjee filed the emergency challenge in federal court seeking the family's release.

Hours later, on Friday evening, the family was freed. Mukherjee said ICE failed to turn over Amalia's prescriptions as well as her birth certificate. The parents weren't immediately available for an interview.

The reprieve brought them relief, Mukherjee said, but she expects the experience will have lasting consequences.

"I imagine they're going to carry the trauma of this experience for the rest of their lives," she said.

CAIRO (AP) — A limited number of Palestinians traveled betweenGazaand Egypt on Sunday as the Rafah crossing reopened after a two-day closure, Egyptian state media reported.

Israel Palestinians Gaza

The vital border pointopened last week for the first timesince mid-2024, one of the main requirements for theU.S.-backed ceasefirebetween Israel and Hamas. The crossing was closed Friday and Saturday because of confusion around operations.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 17 medical evacuees and 27 companions had begun the crossing into Egypt. The same number was expected to head into Gaza. Israel didn't immediately confirm it.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday, though the major subject of discussion will beIran, his office said.

Delays and mistreatment accusations

Over thefirst four daysof the crossing's opening, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to U.N. data. Rafah's reopening came after Israel retrieved the remains of the last hostage in Gaza and U.S. officials visited Israel to apply pressure.

Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza seek to leave for medical care that isn't available in the war-shattered territory.

A group of Palestinian patients gathered Sunday in the courtyard of a Red Crescent hospital in Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis before making their way to the crossing for treatment abroad, family members told The Associated Press.

Amjad Abu Jedian, injured in the war, had been scheduled to leave for medical treatment on the first day of the crossing's reopening, but only five patients were allowed to travel, said his mother, Raja Abu Jedian. He was shot by an Israeli sniper while doing building work in the central Bureij refugee camp in July 2024, she said.

On Saturday, his family received a call from the World Health Organization about traveling on Sunday, she said.

"We want them to take care of the patients (during their evacuation)," she said. "We want the Israeli military not to burden them."

Returning to Gaza

A group of Palestinians arrived Sunday at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing to return to Gaza, Egypt's state-run Al-Qahera News satellite television reported.

Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first few days of the crossing's operation described hours of delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. Israel has denied mistreatment.

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A European Union mission and Palestinian officials run the border crossing, and Israel has its screening facility some distance away.

The Rafah crossing, a lifeline for Gaza, was the only one not controlled by Israel before the war. Israel seized the Palestinian side in May 2024, though traffic through the crossing was heavily restricted even before that.

Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials mean that only 50 people will be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients — with two companions for each — will be allowed to leave, but far fewer people have crossed so far.

Hamas negotiations

A senior Hamas official, Khaled Mashaal, said the militant group is open to discuss the future of its weapons as part of a "balanced approach" that includes the reconstruction of Gaza and protecting the Palestinian enclave from Israel. Such issues are central in the ceasefire's second phase.

Mashaal said the group has offered multiple options, including a long-term truce, as part of ongoing negotiations with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators.

Hamas plans to agree to a number of "guarantees," including a 10-year period of disarmament and an international peacekeeping force on Gaza's borders, "to maintain peace and prevent any clashes" between the militants and Israel, Mashaal said at a forum in Qatar.

Israel has repeatedly demanded the complete disarmament and dismantling of Hamas and its infrastructure, both military and civil.

Mashaal accused Israel of financing and arming militias, like the Abu Shabab group which operates in Israeli military-controlled areas in Gaza, "to create chaos."

Mashaal was asked about Hamas' position on the new Board of Peace, a Trump-led group of world leaders that isexpected to meetfor the first time Feb. 19 to raise money for Gaza's reconstruction. He didn't offer a specific answer but said the group won't accept "foreign intervention" in Palestinian affairs.

"Gaza is for the people of Gaza. Palestinians are for the people of Palestine," he said. "We will not accept foreign rule."

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Find more of AP's coverage athttps://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war